Mud, microfossils and time travel
Video credit: UK Research and Innovation
Video transcript and on-screen captions are available by watching on YouTube.
What do ice ages, mega tsunamis and ancient oceans have in common?
Zoe meets Cían McGuire, a curator looking after 2,500 sediment cores from the bottom of the ocean.
These are more than just tubes of mud. They’re time capsules recording volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, climate shifts and even how the Sahara turned from grassland to a desert.
The oldest sediment cores at the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility at the National Oceanography Centre contain layers dating back a few million years. While the oldest known core in the world reaches back 150 million years, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.
What’s inside these sediment cores? What can they tell us about our future, using the past? Join Zoe in this episode to find out!
Want to know more about why work like Cían’s matters? Here’s how sediment cores helped scientists study the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai eruption (YouTube), one of the most explosive volcanic eruptions in modern history.
Last updated: 11 April 2025